Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Discovery On Tyrannosaurus Rex

Even in the last year and also in the last decade, there have been new studies on Tyrannosaurus Rex
and their intimates that stood no taller than us for closely 100 million years.

Paleontologists lay out all the current discoveries that tell the story of the world’s favorite ancient monster in the journal Science in this week.

Stephen Brusatte,one of the study leaders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York

says:

"Up until about ten years ago we only knew about Tyrannosaurus rex and a handful of its closest relatives - all colossal, apex predators from the end Cretaceous in North America,” Brusatte explained. “Now we know of about 20 tyrannosaur species that span a time period of 100 million years, most of which are very small.”

In the last year scientists have exposed six fresh species. The team writes in the study that one of those newly revealed species was “100 million years older and 1/100 the size of Tyrannosaurus rex.” University of Maryland tyrannosaur expert Thomas Holtz, Jr., added: “I like to call [early tyrannosaurs] the jackals of the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous.